The Six Mistakes of Hermione Granger
by Ptrst
Summary: PG13 for major selfdestructive behavior. A step or two short of a suicide fic. He cheated her. He didn't cheat on her, but he cheated her out of love...Based off of real life experiences. Read if you want to. Don't read if easily set off.
1. Default Chapter

Author's Note: The first... four and a half of those mistakes are ones that I've made, too; I haven't written to vent since July or something, so it felt really good. This was written more for me than anything, but reviews are always appreciated.

He cheated her… He didn't cheat on her, but he cheated her out of love. He promised that he would never hurt her, and she had been foolish enough to believe him. She should have known he couldn't be trusted, that no one could really be trusted with something as important as your heart, but she had wanted so much to trust him. It had been so easy to forget what she knew, to ignore the voice in the back of her mind telling her that it was going to end badly, that she should get out while she was still intact. She knew everything wasn't as fine as he pretended it was, she knew there was a reason for him being so distant, but she asked him about it and he said everything was fine… and she had been foolish enough to believe him. She was supposed to be the smart one, she should have known better than to believe him, especially when the consequences were as dangerous to her as that. That was her first mistake.

Physically, she should have been fine. She shouldn't have let him get to her. She should have let it go when he did and forgot all about it. After all, at least it happened; if it was over, well that was the reasonable consequence from it beginning in the first place. She knew all that. But all the knowledge in the world meant nothing to her heart. She tried to forget about him, tried to make it hurt less by pretending she didn't feel it at all, but it didn't work. She would be all smiles during the day, but at night, after everyone was asleep, she would lay in her bed and cry, wishing it hadn't ended, wishing he would appear in her room and apologize for hurting her, beg for her to take him back. She knew it would never happen, that she was a fool for wishing it, but it meant nothing to her aching heart. She wanted to die, to be free from the pain of existence. It was hardest when she saw him. Her smile stayed when she saw him, but she felt like her stomach was collapsing, and she wanted to go up to him and yell and scream and cry, make him feel terrible for what he'd done to her. She wasn't used to all those emotions, the heartbreak, and she let it get to her. That was her second mistake.

After a few days of endless agony, she was desperate for an outlet. She needed a distraction, more than even her schoolwork could grant her. For though she tried to bury herself in work even more than usual, there just weren't enough essays and questions and notes to copy and recopy to keep her busy, and she always ended up with extra time, time where she longed to cry but knew she couldn't. More time for pretending. She was desperate. It was eleven o'clock at night, several hours past curfew and at least an hour after everyone else had retired for the night. She had finished her schoolwork for the next week and a half, and had three copies of all her notes, all perfectly written and without error. She didn't want to go to bed, because she was tired of crying, which she knew she would. She needed another distraction, something else to do… she ran her bitten-down fingernails across her forearm in frustration and despair. She didn't know why she did it, but she knew it helped. So she did it again. She did it harder, and again and again, going over the same place, forming dark red letters; not blood, just skin and pain and relief. She spelled his name over and over again, deeper and deeper, no blood, just skin and pain and relief. She knew it was wrong, and she didn't care. She was shaking, and she didn't notice. She had found something that helped, an outlet for her emotions, and that was all that really mattered. That was her third mistake.

She knew that nobody would notice. After all, who would look for such a thing? She knew that she could cover the marks, and she had planned on doing so the next morning, but she checked her arm when she woke up and the marks were gone, faint red lines barely visible and not noticeably connected. She knew then, as she saw her arms, no evidence of anything negative, that she was safe. That was her fourth mistake.

She stopped crying, and her smile became genuine. When she saw him, she still felt like screaming, but she just waited for class to start and she slipped her hand into her sleeve and scratched. There was no need for a pattern; as long as there was pain, there was relief. She became dependent on it, needed the pain to cancel out stress and anger and sadness. She had no emotions, only relief. What had started out with desperation ended up being her life. That was her fifth mistake, and the only one that mattered.

Because her fifth mistake is what lead her into the hospital wing; it was the reason she was laying on one of Madame Pomfrey's beds, nails trimmed too short to feel, with her friends standing around her, shaking their heads sadly. The feeble pain from her fingernails was no longer enough, and the skin on her arms was tough and calloused. She took a knife, stolen from the Great Hall, and carved his name into her arm once again, deeper than before, deep enough to feel again. Deep enough to draw blood. Enough blood that she had gone pale, and that her bed sheets had dark red stains on them from when she slept.

And now there wasn't just skin, pain, and relief. There was blood and fear and bitterness and anger, and sorrow that it was over, because she knew somebody would check her arms every day, whether they were obvious about it or not. Mostly, though, there was anger. Because she knew that she would still have to see him every day, and she knew that he would have found out about what he made her do. And she knew that she had let him win. That was her sixth mistake, and she vowed to make it her last.

Author's Note: It's about Hermione and someone else - I'll let you decide who. It doesn't really matter to the story. I have someone in my mind, and I'm sure you have your own ideas.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note**: I seem to have connected to a lot of people with the first part of this, and so I wrote a second. Put this anywhere from her third mistake to her fifth - it wasn't placed purposely anywhere.  
This may seem a little... graphic, and I'm sure that it's descriptive, but that's because I was sort of narrating myself last night, so it's from real life. I'm sorry if I offend anyone, or if anyone's upset because of this.

* * *

She laid there, the small knife she had "borrowed" from the kitchens in her equally small hand, fitting perfectly in her grasp, the weight giving her a small comfort while the blade glinted menacingly in the dull light. Moving the cold metal to the pale, scarred skin on her inner arm, she wondered if it had really come to this, that she needed the sharp pain of the cold, stolen blade in order to attain any sort of comfort.

After another moment's hesitation, she pressed it with some force into her arm and sliced, watching the crease form where she moved the blade, knowing that if she cut the same spot too many times again, or if she pressed too hard, the thin crease would be replaced with a line of blood. Blood was messy, she knew, and damn near impossible to clean up – she was careful to never draw blood.

Gently scraping the sharp edge of the knife along her arm, she felt for the almost-gone scars, knowing that opening up old wounds hurt more than creating new ones.

She gasped in pain and relief.

She looked down at the fresh crisscrossing marks on her arm, and vaguely tried to recall what had happened to do this to her, when if had gotten this bad. A face, and a name to go along with it, came to mind, but, slicing at another old mark, she decided that it really didn't matter; what's done was done, no matter the motivation. And there was certainly no going back now.

She remembered, when she had just started on her path of self-destruction, the freshness, the sharpness of the pain, how she had bit down on the inside of her lip and cheeks to stop herself from crying out, the sharp intake of breath when she couldn't stop herself, when the pain was unexpectedly magnified by hitting a sensitive spot on her arm, or by accidentally cutting deeper than she had intended. Oh, how she longed for that feeling again, the actual pain, instead of this dull stinging that was little more than irritating, and the now-swollen white and red crisscrossing lines that were the sole evidence of her activities.

She set her knife down and ran a single finger, very slowly, down her arm, counting the lines, admiring their elegant beauty and substance. She almost laughed at herself then – sensible as she used to be, as she usually was, admiring the scars that had caused her such pain to create, and even more pain to want to create. But she didn't laugh – her mouth twitched in the beginning of a smile, but the use of these facial muscles brought tears to her eyes like no amount of self-inflicted pain could.

There were nine marks, she counted, nine swollen lines that, if left alone, would soon fade into faint scab-like glimpses of former pain and an ongoing inner struggle for peace.

Suddenly, she decided that nine was an insensible number. Tilting her hand as far back as she could to flex the muscle on her arm and enhance the pain, she picked up her knife and cut once more, this time in a fresh spot nearer her elbow, where the gap between marks was larger than usual.

She brought the knife up off of her skin, checking the painful crease on her arm. She set it back on her skin, moving the edge slightly to make sure she had it in the right place, and cut again. She closed her eyes, relishing the sharp stinging, before checking the mark again and going over the cut for a third time.

Once more, she ran a finger down the inside of her arm, barely feeling it with the nerves that had been numbed with weeks – months – worth of self-inflicted agony. There were ten now, ten perfect lines on the pale, fragile-looking, unfeeling skin. _Ten is a much more sensible number than nine_, she though as she carefully slipped the knife under her mattress for the next night's use and went to sleep.


End file.
